Saturday, December 15, 2012

Silent Killers

A
silent killer stalks our woods and fields, meadows and hedgerows. It strikes
quickly and efficiently and shows no mercy. Its predations account for a
near-mass slaughter of certain native creatures. This is an introduced predator
and we introduced it. And we bear responsibility for its existence.

By
now I can hear readers thinking, “Oh, my, what terrible creature might this
be?” Well, the answer may come as a surprise. The introduced predator is the
common housecat, gone wild. The feral cat population continues to swell as the
exurban push continues.

With
every new house that sprouts up on formally wild land or agricultural land that
was sold out of inability to pay continually-rising property taxes, the number
of housecats roaming those places increases exponentially. And when that
happens, the number of native bird and small mammal species diminishes
accordingly.

My
interest in this topic was piqued by the decreasing number of ruffed grouse,
woodcock and also, snowshoe hares on my woodland property. It took me a while
to figure out what the problem was. I blamed fishers, weasels, foxes, bobcats
and coyotes. But coyotes don’t catch too many game birds. They instead,
concentrate upon small mammals. And while coyotes are a relative newcomer to
these parts, foxes, bobcats and the rest were here well before we were.
Something different had to account for the sudden slackening in small game and
game bird numbers.

And
that something was housecats. As more and more people moved out my way (a large
agricultural landowner had gone out of business and subdivided their land…after
cutting all the useful timber), I began seeing more and more housecats in the
woods. And only shortly thereafter, the small game population went south.

In
addition to the heavy toll these feral cats take on small game, they also kill
songbirds. I can no longer maintain a bird feeder, since these cats hide in
nearby bushes, patiently waiting to leap on any ground-feeding bird that might
chance to pick up a sunflower seed that had dropped to the ground.

These
cats are of two types; fully wild and part-wild. The fully-wild cats have
litters outdoors and the offspring grow up as genuine wild animals. The other
variety is cats that people feed sometimes and might even let in their houses
on occasion. But that’s as far as it goes. These animals have the run of the
woods and only show up at home for a meal or when bitter cold weather prompts
them to go for creature comforts. They, of course, are not properly cared for
in that the irresponsible owners do not have them vaccinated against rabies,
distemper or any of the other diseases that cats are prone to.

Maine law states that cats, like dogs, must be under the
owner’s immediate supervision when off the owner’s property. But of course no
one bothers with obeying that law. I have even had cat owners scoff at the
suggestion that they keep their cats home.

So
who is to blame here? Well, the cats are animals and simply follow their animal
nature. So the fault clearly lies with the owners.

Sadly,
I don’t see any help for this situation. Perhaps some day more people will
exercise responsibility in this regard, but I don’t see that happening any time
soon.

By the way, the mystery item shown in my "What's It?" quiz posted a while ago is the interior skeleton of a common squid, also known as a "pen." These are of a translucent, cartiliginous material and they are found inside the body, or "tube" of a squid.

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About Tom Seymour

Besides writing freelance pieces for a number of magazines, I am also a regular columnist and feature writer for The Maine Sportsman Magazine, New England’s largest circulation outdoor magazine. Additionally, I am a regular contributor to Fisherman’s Voice Magazine, specializing in maritime history and human-interest stories. Finally, I write several columns for Courier Publication newspapers, including a home-and-garden column called From The Ground Up.

My book credits include Wild Plants of Maine, A Useful Guide, Hidden World Revealed, Musings of A Maine Naturalist and Tom Seymour's Forager's Notebook, all by Just Write Books, Topsham, Maine. I also wrote Foraging New England, Fishing Maine, Hiking Maine, Off The Beaten Path, Maine, Birding Maine and Nuts & Berries of New England, all for Globe Pequot Press. The Maine Sportsman has published a collection of my wildlife columns in book form as an inducement to subscribers. Finally, Tom Seymour's Maine, A Maine Anthology, iUniverse Press, is a collection of Maine history and folklore.

Foraging for wild plants is my great passion and these figure largely in my diet. I live in a small cottage that sits well off the road on 10 acres of land in Waldo, Maine.